Step into the shoes of:

This happened a while back and I was honestly gobsmacked people still behaved like this. In my preparations for my upcoming exams, I decided to take a couple of days off from studying. I traveled back home for a quick getaway to rid myself of all things tied to University; deadlines, assignments, exams, intentional procrastination. Upon my arrival at the coach station, I decided to take the bus route home mainly because I wasn’t up for getting lost in the whole London underground system. Getting the bus home meant I had to take 3 buses to get home. It was definitely as tedious as it sounds but it was one heck of a journey I was willing to take; anything to avoid the London underground.

I dislike taking the underground for many reasons. For example everyone is always in a rush to get from A to B, no one ever looks up and just smile, everyone is always running to catch a tube that runs every 2 to 3 minutes, and I suffer from a mild case of claustrophobia, plus it is just mayhem especially during London rush hour.

The distance between home and university is a fair distance, at least 65 miles, which is a fair distance for all sense of politeness, respect and kindness to varnish between my environment at university and home LONDON-TOWN.

I’m on my second bus now and my mum decided to meet me half way, which meant I would not have to get any more buses that night. All of a sudden this woman with an accent that I can’t quite my finger on decides to pipe up, yelling all sorts, disturbing the peace on the bus. At this point I was already irritated because the bus was overly packed at this point yet the bus driver keeps stopping at every stop to pick new passengers even if only one person got off the bus at that stop. I am only 5 ft 2 which means I am relatively short which I guess translated to other people as the opportunity to lose all sense of courtesy and manners. I had some people stepping on me without apologising because ‘they couldn’t see me there’ or bumping into me right, left and centre. I definitely was over the whole journey and it was around 8pm too.

I turned back to see why this woman was being so loud only to find out all that racket was over a baby in a buggy who did not look over one years old. She was yelling, arguing with the father of this baby, really going at it all because his boy placed his legs on her suitcase. This woman was making a fuss over nothing and somehow this got blown out of proportion, threats were been flung around like it was a bunch of leaves been thrown into the wind, and these threats were not even towards the father or any other grown person on the bus but towards the baby. I concluded that she had clearly lost it. This lady started using all sorts of foul languages so you can imagine the frustration of the parents of the child. The sad thing was the father went up to formally complain about the lady with the bad case of verbal diarrhea yet the bus driver did nothing, not even stopped the bus to calm things down. This is obviously a classic case of unfair justice in my opinion. A number of people on the bus had to voice up including another man with his own family and baby who basically kept uttering words along the line of silence is the best answer for a fool, to which I agreed because she was on #teamtoomuch with all her aggro. At one point with so many frustration going around, a random woman yelled from the back of the bus ‘if you hit that child, I will hit you back‘ and still the bus driver refused to stop to diffuse this situation. With everything going on, little ol me took in a deep breath and said to myself, “Welcome Home, Welcome to Londontown” This craziness continued for about another 10 minutes before the lady with the suitcase finally got off the bus. It was just ridiculous to see how people react to even the littlest things. She could have easily just smiled I mean the baby was practically clueless and simply told the father hey can you get your son to stop or something.

Leo Tolstoy said “The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.” How would you have handled that situation if you was the lady with the accent, the father, the bus driver?

Off we go and in less than 5 minutes, while still literally circling a roundabout, we were followed by a police car. I think it is because the sun is shining today and its save to say that they come out more during sunny weather. It could maybe be because the ‘youth’ of now a days ]go about gallivanting and they aka police needs to put a stop to such ridiculousness. I don’t know – BEATS ME! They aka police are like bats that come flying out when the night is nigh. Let’s just say there was no road crime committed and we weren’t the source of attraction.

Fast forward now, we reached our first pit stop which was Woolwich. I would describe Woolwich as a high streets filled with lots of affordable clothing store, fast food joints and a rowdy open market. Barbaric is one word to use sometimes! we, meaning my mum, dad and I visited one of the shoe shops but don’t let me bore you with that detail.

My dad and I decided to run some other errands so we decided to leave my mum at the shoe shop. We went straight to the opticians. Now the optician is usually not something to write about, in fact nothing and I do mean nothing ever happens or changes at my optician, not even my prescription. So to my greatest surprise my broken eyes came across this absolutely drop dead gorgeous guy, for a second there my eye sight was completely restored to its full potential, loool. This man was so fine, he had the whole ‘Miles Hodges’ thing going on (Google him and thank me later); olive skin, beautiful green eyes, curly blonde hair.. Now I’m not one to be pervy, well actually I am, but be honest so are you (LMAO). Just appreciating God’s creations that’s all. After booking my next appointment and sorting out my dads’, we went on to finish everything else that needed to be done.

Went into a store called Poundland (yes guys, I am British hence the pound, for the slow coach) where I ran into one of my old friend, I was so excited to see her. Chatted for so long that I lost my parents in the store, I had to go round the entire store to look for them; finally found them queueing at the till. For a quick second, I had to ask them if they realised at all I was gone? I wonder if they would have left me there, I’d like to think not, but on the other hand, they have 3 more kids so leaving one may not come at a great loss to them. Joking!

Our next stop took us all the way to east London, from the south east;which is where my mother works as a nurse. Our journey there consisted of many unwelcome discussions that I didn’t want to be a part of but had no choice.

Jobs starts at 2 PM and we were about 10 minutes early, what I was thinking when I talked my mum into a ‘bring your daughter to work day?’ I blame it on curiosity and of course the dead cat and television. I got the bloody idea from My wife and kids.

Being a community nurse means owning a vehicle is an essential part of the job to make it easier. Going from one patient to another. Since all I want to do is shadowing, I practically sat and watched, watched, watched and when I am done with that, I watched a bit more. Watched her do her thing, ‘I noticed that my mum looked so comfortable in her element; right then and there I couldn’t be happier or any more proud of her than I already was.I know what a community nurse does and what their day to day activity consist of, well I learnt all that at school, from the internet and the textbooks but never have I ever actually got the chance to stand front line, front row of a life movie in which she was the leading lady.

I got to meet the entire office that day, well everyone working that shift and off we go thereafter. off. All her co- workers were quite friendly, obviously some more than others but you can’t be liked by everyone. Now thinking of everyone, I’m bloody starving. Oh! Why didn’t I eat before leaving home? Thank God for Poundland and my dad who got me some american cookies and water.

I have always wanted to be a nurse in my earlier days. Oh God I sound so old; I’m only 18. Whenever anyone asked me ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ For as long as I remember I would reply a nurse. This may because both my parents have once or is presently a nurse. Subconsciously I wanted to follow their footsteps, but now I highly doubt that that is the career path for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m up for helping people and nursing people back to health but I plan on finding that satisfaction from another profession.

To be honest my passion is to travel as far as I can, open a charity preferably in Nigeria, have a family, become a better poet, but that’s is a blog for another day.

Lunch Break: Now the perks of owning a car and having an hour lunch break is being able to visit family and other relations around the area, which we did.

Lunch Over, we decided to ditch my dad and my mum and I plough through the rest of day’s work. Cast your mind back to when I said Woolwich was barbaric; I take that back. East Ham is the true definition of barbaric. As of right now, I am the proud owner of a provisional license and need to complete my driving test. let’s just say EAST HAM would be the worst place to do it. I kept wondering why my mum was getting angry at the different drivers in front of her driving carelessly, I mean she should be used to it by now. She used to drive in Nigeria and let’s just say traffic lights means nothing to them and new drivers would absolutely crap themselves if someone asked them to drive on a Nigeria road.

Due to confidentiality and privacy, I wasn’t able to see much. What I had envisioned was something completely different for my ‘mother daughter day’. However the day wasn’t completely ruined as I got to spend quality time with my mother, visited places I once lived but don’t even remember, yes I used to live in EAST HAM, the so called ‘BARBARIC’ place. The only time I managed to get out of the car was when I had to go to the toilet. So it was not exactly what I had imagined, I still had fun regardless during my day as a ‘supposed’ community nurse. Even the rain couldn’t dampen my day and it rained an awful lot!